634: Your Products Are Invisible to AI. The New Search Rules For 2026

Summary

Podcast Summary: The My Wife Quit Her Job Podcast With Steve Chou

Episode 634: Your Products Are Invisible to AI – The New Search Rules for 2026
Published: April 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into Amazon's recent move to block AI platforms (like Perplexity) from indexing their product listings—a radical shift with wide implications for ecommerce sellers. Sarah, Tony, and Liz discuss how the rise of AI agents is fundamentally reshaping product research and purchasing, the new dynamics of brand storytelling, and strategic actions sellers must take to remain visible and relevant as AI takes over the shopping journey. The tone is conversational, practical, and laced with personal anecdotes and a touch of skepticism toward Amazon’s evolving strategy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Amazon Blocks AI Indexing: The Perplexity Case (01:38–06:22)

• Amazon’s Legal Move:
  Amazon has legally blocked Perplexity (and likely others) from scraping and indexing their ecommerce and product listings.

  “Amazon decided to block all AI. And then there was this court case between Amazon and Perplexity where Perplexity lost…” – Tony (01:38)

• Amazon’s True Priorities:
  Contrary to what many believe, Amazon’s emphasis has shifted from growing ecommerce to maximizing ad revenue.

  “Amazon's main business now is not ecommerce… their cash cow now is advertising.” – Tony (02:32)

• Seller Perspective:
  Sellers want more sales, regardless of where they originate (Amazon or AI agents), but Amazon wants to keep buyers within their ecosystem.

  “You just want more sales. You don't care whether they come from Amazon or an agent recommending something, right?” – Tony (02:52)

• Blockade Consequences:
  Now, AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity can’t surface Amazon product listings, making those products ‘invisible’ to AI shoppers.

  “From what I understand, all information that was scraped on the Amazon website is not going to show up anymore.” – Tony (05:21)

2. Rise of Agentic Commerce: How People Shop with AI (07:10–12:57)

• AI Agents and Shopping:
  Tools like OpenClaw (and Claude) can build shopping lists, research products, and recommend purchases—without needing to ask users to directly browse Amazon.

• The Walmart Opportunity:
  With Amazon blocking AI, competitors like Walmart may benefit if their products remain accessible and AI-friendly.

  “Does it mean that Walmart… if they take the opposite,… might have an advantage?” – Liz (12:14)

• Rufus Isn’t the Answer (Yet):
  Amazon’s own AI tool, Rufus, isn’t prominent or user-friendly, and there's skepticism about its real value.

  “I'm probably not going to use Rufus. Mainly because I feel like all the reviews on Amazon are skewed anyway.” – Tony (13:53)

3. Strategies for Sellers: Writing AI-Readable Product Descriptions (15:19–23:30)

• Emotional Selling is Key:
  AI agents respond best to copy that addresses user intent and emotional triggers—problem-solving, differentiation, and aspiration matter even more now.

  “Basically it means tapping into the emotions of your customer… you have to figure out what the true intent, what the customer is thinking…” – Tony (15:38)

• Real Example:
  True Classic Tees’ success comes from copy that describes how their shirts solve real problems and improve self-image—not just technical specs.

  “This shirt fits no matter how tall you are… stretchy and comfortable for tall people… their point of differentiation…” – Tony (16:47)
  "Shout out to them for actually creating an awesome product that does what it says and they last." – Liz (17:52)

• Mining Reviews for Copy:
  Sellers should analyze their own review content to extract emotional insights for their listings.

  “…using reviews to help write all the copy…scraping reviews on their website and basically using all that copy in everything we do now.” – Liz (18:50)

• Shopping Will Split:
  AI agents will dominate commodity and practical purchases, but luxury and emotional purchases may stay human-driven.

  “I think there's going to be this big line… luxury side…people want the engagement, they want the interaction…” – Liz (25:04)

4. The Future of Brand Building with AI-Shopping Agents (30:28–37:20)

• Brand Storytelling at Risk:
  When AI shops for you, traditional brand storytelling (about the founder, brand values, etc.) loses some of its persuasive power.

  “If AI is making those decisions, like all the work that you do for branding on your site and whatnot, like, does that even matter as much anymore?” – Tony (30:52)

• What Still Matters:
  The copy must speak directly to specific customer desires and use-cases, not just generic feature lists.

  “I feel like the brand storytelling doesn't matter as much… but does the storytelling in the copy…?” – Liz (32:51)

• The Loop: AI Writing for AI Searching:
  AI-generated listings may end up being processed and recommended by AIs, creating a feedback loop. Sellers must ensure their product information is explicit, detailed, and customer-focused.

  "If AI is writing the listing and AI is finding the buyers or finding the products…feels like this weird circle.” – Liz (35:30)

• Tactical Takeaways:
  Go through all your reviews (Amazon and direct site), mine for emotional language, and integrate it directly into product listings—on both your own site and Amazon.

5. Splintering the Shopper’s Journey: Two Shopping Silos (37:47–38:20)

• Sellers Must Now Double Their Efforts:
  Because Amazon is siloed, sellers must optimize emotionally resonant, AI-parsable copy both for their independent sites (to remain visible to AI shoppers) and for Amazon (to succeed within Amazon’s closed ecosystem).

  “Amazon is forcing us to do this twice now—on our own website and Amazon… we'll have two silos.” – Tony (37:52)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On Why Amazon’s Move is Risky:

  “This is just like a blatant thing.…I kind of already dislike them, but this makes it worse because this is like a pretty blatant way for them to just control the seller.” – Tony (03:53)

• On Emotional Product Copy:

  “They don't actually want an apple peeler. They want a fresh apple pie at Thanksgiving that their grandmother used to make. You know that's what you're selling….” – Liz (16:13)

• On the Incompatibility of AI Shopping and Brand Connection:

  “A[I] doesn't care about any of that stuff. I'm just thinking, maybe in the future it's going to be harder to build a brand…” – Tony (34:33)

• On the Looming AI Content Loop:

  “…does that…can't AI just figure this all out on its own? Like, if AI is writing the listing and AI is finding the buyers or finding the products…it feels like this weird circle.” – Liz (35:30)

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• Amazon blocks AI/Perplexity lawsuit: 01:38–06:22
• Shift from ecommerce to ads as Amazon’s focus: 02:32
• Rise and mechanism of AI agents in product research: 07:10–12:57
• Why Walmart and Rufus matter in this new landscape: 12:13–14:44
• Optimizing copy for AI and emotional resonance: 15:36–23:30, 35:51–37:47
• Brand storytelling vs. AI shopping agents: 30:28–34:33
• Practical next steps for sellers: 35:38–38:20

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Actionable Takeaways for Ecommerce Sellers

• Optimize BOTH Amazon and your own site for emotionally-driven, AI-readable copy.
• Mine your reviews for true customer intent, problems solved, and desired outcomes—build those into your product descriptions.
• Stay tuned to changes in how AI agents source, suggest, and route buyers—and be nimble to adapt as these tools (and walled gardens like Amazon) evolve.
• Recognize that luxury and experiential products still benefit from strong human-driven branding and storytelling.
• Prepare for a future where AI, not humans, makes most shopping decisions—your product may become invisible if you don’t adapt now.

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For more info or to access their free ecommerce course:
mywifequitterjob.com/episode634

For Seller Summit tickets:
sellersummit.com

Transcript

[Sarah]

Welcome back to the podcast, the show where I cover all the latest strategies and current events related to E commerce and online business. In this episode, Tony and I dig into Amazon's decision to block AI tools from indexing their product listings and why it's a risky bet. We talked through how AI agents are quietly changing the way people research and buy products and what this means for sellers who are still writing copy like it's 2015. If you sell anything online, this conversation will change how you think about your product descriptions. But before we begin, I want to let you know that tickets for Seller Summit 2026 are now on sale [e-mail] and if you sell physical products online, this is the event that you should be at. Unlike most events that are filled with high level fluff and inspirational stories, Seller Summit is all about tactical, step by step strategies you can actually use in your business right away. Every speaker I invite is in the trenches. People who are running their own e commerce stores, managing inventory, dealing with suppliers

[Tony]

and scaling real businesses.

[Sarah]

No corporate execs and no consultants. Also, I hate large events, so I intentionally keep it small and intimate. We cap attendance at around 200 people so you can actually have real conversations and connect with everyone in the room. We've sold out every single year for the past nine years and I expect this year to be no different. It's happening April 21st to 23rd in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And if you're doing over 250k or $1 million in revenue, we also offer a private mastermind for high level sellers. Right now, tickets are the cheapest they're ever going to be. So if you want in, go over to sellersummit.com and grab your ticket.

[Tony]

Now onto the show.

[Sarah]

Welcome back to the My Wife Quitter Job podcast.

[Tony]

Today we're going to be talking about agentic commerce and specifically something just happened pretty recently where Amazon decided to block all AI. And then there was this court case between Amazon and Perplexity where Perplexity lost and Perplexity has to delete all of the E commerce and product listings from their entire database. And I'm pretty sure Perplexity is just like the first AI company that they'll have to do this with.

[Liz]

Yeah, I mean, I, I don't want to go to court against Amazon, honestly.

[Tony]

Well, no, for now.

[Liz]

For now.

[Tony]

I was thinking about this because it was a topic amongst some of my colleagues where you would think that it's in Amazon's best interests to let AI, you know, index their products so that they get more sales.

[Liz]

Right, Right.

[Tony]

But that's not the case because Amazon's main business now is not E commerce. I mean, they haven't been growing for like the last. They've been growing, but then they've been slowing down for the last several quarters now. Mm. And their cash cow now is advertising.

[Sarah]

But.

[Tony]

But if you're like a seller on Amazon, you know, you just want more sales. You don't care whether they come from Amazon or an agent recommending something, Right?

[Liz]

Yeah, yeah. So my question is, is there not a way for Amazon to work out a deal, Perplexity or any other service to where they can make money this way as well?

[Tony]

I mean, they'd have to work out something. I don't know. The way it works now is they'll do people do research on Perplexity or chatgpt and then they just go to Amazon anyway, right?

[Liz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tony]

And then recently, I think we talked about this. Last week, OpenAI dropped their strategy to allow checkout directly on AI. So I don't know, it just. This, this makes me like, dislike Amazon a lot. I mean, I already kind of dislike.

[Liz]

Dislike Amazon.

[Tony]

I kind of already dislike them, but this, this makes it worse because this is like a pretty blatant way for them to just control the seller.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

At least in the past they could say, oh, yeah, we were doing this for the sake of sellers. Right.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Like some of their things, like when they raise prices, they go, oh, we're just using it to provide better service.

[Liz]

Right.

[Tony]

You know, on fba better this time it's like, does not help the seller at all.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

This is just like a blatant thing.

[Liz]

Well, the bit. So, because I don't use Perplexity, but I use Chat GPT a lot, as we've talked about a million times. And sometimes what I will is if I'm researching something, right. I want to buy an inflatable air mattress. Let's just say I'm thinking about this because our friend Liz has like the best air mattress ever. And I was like, if I have to buy an air mattress, I want to buy this one because it doesn't deflate while you sleep on it. But I'm probably going to go to chat and like, talk through some things. And then sometimes chat will give you a link, right. To something, sometimes it doesn't. It just depends. But Amazon can't block that or can it?

[Sarah]

Well, no, that's the point.

[Tony]

Like the.

[Liz]

It'll give you like that little. That little bubble. You know what I mean? Like at the end of the sentence. Like sometimes I'll say like, hey, I want to go to, I want to take a train from, you know, Spain to Portugal. Where can I, where can I find this? And they'll give me like a little link to like a couple different train services. Right. So is that getting blocked?

[Tony]

From what I understand, all information that was scraped on the Amazon website is not going to show up anymore. I could be wrong. You know what's funny is like, I use chat GPT practically every day. Yeah, I don't think I've seen a single Amazon product mentioned.

[Liz]

Well, yeah, I don't know if I have either because I don't typically research to buy directly on Amazon. I'm more looking at just like. And then I'll. And then I'll. Same thing you said. I'll go type it in. But I do know that I get links from ChatGPT all the time to, to products, websites, all that stuff.

[Tony]

Right.

[Liz]

So that's what that will go. If you were getting that, that goes away on perplexity because I do these

[Tony]

searches all the time just to check where I'm at in there. And I, I check, I, I do e commerce searches from time to time. But yeah, I, I see Walmart all the time, but I don't think I've seen an Amazon link in, in like months. So, yeah, I think they're out of the database for LLMs.

[Liz]

Okay. Interesting.

[Tony]

Yeah. Okay, so here's why this matters. I'm pretty sure I know the answer to this question, Tony, but I'm just guessing that you haven't been playing around with Open Claw at all.

[Liz]

No, but I'm about to. I just, I just actually last. So I had dinner with a friend this weekend and he was going on and on and on about how he's using Claude Cowork and how it's like the greatest thing, you know, and he's in like hospital administration, like not, you know, not something that we do. So I started playing around with that last night and then I was like, you know, I need to start like broadening my AI horizon. So that's next on my list to, to get into. So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited. I'll probably start looking at it this weekend.

[Tony]

So the reason why I bring it up is because one of my friends here, in case you guys are listening to this, you have no idea what OpenClaw is. It's basically like an agent that's like your virtual AI assistant.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

And you can tell it to do anything and it will go and figure out how to do it. So, for example, so one of my friends, like, he uses it to put together shopping lists, right? Like, I want to build a computer, find me the best components, and. And then his agent will go off and find those components, you know, using AI or, you know, cl. He has it hooked up to Claude.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

The point here is that now that it's been blocked by Amazon, that in theory means that no Amazon products will show up.

[Liz]

Right, Right, right.

[Tony]

And presumably this might be, like, how a lot of people shop. Maybe in the next two to three years.

[Liz]

Yes. So my first question is, it's interesting because you and I have talked about it a little bit on the podcast, but I hear people talking about it on, like, social media and stuff like that, and it feels like there's two buckets of people just in general using this. And it's the people who are like, your friends, right. Who are using it and loving it. I was talking to someone the other day, and they're like, yeah, I just say, like, I have these four ingredients and I need recipes in a shopping list. You know, like, stuff like that. Right. They're using it to help them in their everyday, you know, activities. But then I'm seeing on social media people like travel agents, which, of course, this makes sense, who are like, this is horrible. You'll get booked in the wrong thing.

[Tony]

Yeah.

[Liz]

You'll pay too much. And part of me is like, well, yeah, but you have a vested interest in this being bad, right? Because if you can convince people that if they use this, you know. You know, and a travel agent's free too, right. You know, they're getting.

[Tony]

They're not free, Right.

[Liz]

They're getting a commission from the other side. You're not paying them, Right.

[Tony]

You technically are. Because the prices are more expensive. Because they have to pay the agent, right?

[Liz]

Not. No, not really. Because, like, if you book through Expedia or you book through a travel agent, either Expedia is taking the commission or the travel agent's taking the commission. You know what I mean?

[Tony]

Just. So you're saying it's all built in.

[Liz]

It's all built in, right? Because I've done, like, you know, I love to travel, so I've done a lot of, like, tests on if I book directly through the hotel or airline. Right? Versus Expedia, versus Kayak, versus. You know, I have. I do have a travel agent that I've used in the past. She actually usually gets me the best deal, so. Because she probably has access to sales that I don't know about right, but they're all saying, oh, if you do this, this is the one. And I apparently am friends with a lot of travel agents because they seem to be the loudest on Facebook right now, that it's going to, you know, completely screw you over. You're not going to get to your destination. You're going to, you know, this and that and the other.

[Sarah]

Have you ever wondered how much your

[Tony]

business is actually worth now?

[Sarah]

I sold one of my businesses through Quiet Light, and honestly, just getting that initial valuation changed everything for me. Not because of that number itself, but because of what came with it.

[Tony]

My advisor walked me through exactly what

[Sarah]

buyers would be looking for, how I needed to restructure my accounting, what documentation I was missing, the gaps in my financials that might kill a deal before it even starts, and stuff that I

[Tony]

really had no idea that mattered when it came to selling a business.

[Sarah]

And here's the thing, I wasn't even ready to sell yet. But knowing what I needed to fix meant that I could actually start preparing.

[Tony]

And I now had a roadmap. Everyone at Quiet Light has built or

[Sarah]

sold businesses themselves, so. So my advisor told me what needed to change. It was actually coming from real experience, sitting across from buyers. And by the time I was ready, everything was positioned right and we attracted serious buyers. So if you've been thinking about selling someday, even if that day feels way far off, just getting a free valuation from Quiet Light will make a huge difference. You'll learn what you need to fix right now so you're not scrambling later. And if you're interested, go over to

[Tony]

quietlight.com

[Liz]

so, you know, I wonder. I don't necessarily think that's true, but I'm just curious as to whether who's going to win that. I think. I think the travel agent loses in the end.

[Tony]

Oh, yeah, for sure. All that's going to get disrupted. I don't like to sound doom and gloom, but yeah.

[Liz]

Yeah. Anyway, I think this is going to be interesting to see how it plays out completely, Right? Because if you just think about, okay, now Amazon can't be shown, right? So you. You're using, you know, you're using whatever tool to help you build a computer, right? And now it can't show Amazon products, so it's having to pull from other websites, right. Might not be as good of a deal as Amazon might be a better deal. Might not be two days.

[Tony]

Probably a better deal, actually.

[Liz]

Well, yes, yes, I mean, true, but, you know, it's like that does that Lessen the ability of these agents. Right. Because it really isn't. I mean Amazon is a huge marketplace and I'm sure there are some things that are better deals. And does it mean that Walmart now, you know, if they take the opposite.

[Tony]

Actually that's a good point. Yeah.

[Liz]

You know, because I mean I. Walmart's like I do Walmart groceries and they are coming so hard for Amazon on subscribe and save. Like every time I put paper towels in my cart they're like, would you like to subscribe and save this? Every time I put. Anytime I put a non perishable in my cart, would you want to subscribe and save? And then it's also like. And they don't even, it's not even two day shipping at Walmart. It'll show up that day, almost everything. Right. Because they're just bringing it from the store. So I mean does that mean that Walmart has and might have an advantage?

[Tony]

I mean it's a risk. Have you used Rufus at all? No.

[Liz]

No. Yes. Yes, yes. Not. Not enough to make other than I don't think it's great.

[Tony]

Yeah, I was just thinking about this other. Because that's what they're banking on, right?

[Liz]

Right.

[Tony]

People who want to shop will go and use Rufus to figure it out. And I played around with it. It's like kind of hidden, right. It's not like the default. Especially not. I think you have to click this little tiny button.

[Liz]

Yeah, it's not noticeable. I think it's actually more noticeable on mobile, which makes sense. But.

[Tony]

So this is a huge risk on Amazon's part because if people are shopping on the LLMs and not Rufus, I mean you got to wonder why Rufus isn't more widely exposed. I did see an article maybe a month ago saying like Rufus was growing in leaps and bounds and.

[Liz]

And was it a press release?

[Tony]

I don't know, maybe. Maybe someone more familiar with Rufus. I should get to come on and talk about it. But yeah, I'm probably not going to use Rufus. Mainly because I feel like all the reviews on Amazon are skewed anyway.

[Liz]

So I wouldn't use Rufus. So here's the other thing. You and I are like so heavily biased against Amazon.

[Tony]

That's true.

[Liz]

Right. Because we sell on Amazon or I've sold on Amazon, you sell on Amazon and we talk to Amazon sellers all day, every day. Right. And we know that Amazon does a lot of shady stuff. And so to me, why would I use Rufus when in my mind what Amazon is going to do is put either put their own products right where the margins are the best or they're going to put someone that's like paid to be recommended. Right. I just feel like I don't trust Amazon to, to give me any. I, I prefer to Trust people on TikTok that are telling me to go on Amazon and buy something. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's the point that I've gotten to.

[Sarah]

Yeah. I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about a free resource that I offer on my website that you may not be aware of if you are interested in starting your own online store. I put together a comprehensive six day mini course on how to get started in E commerce that you should all check out. It contains both video and text based tutorials that go over the entire process of finding products to sell all the way to getting your first sales online. Now this course is free and, and can be [e-mail] free. Just sign up right there on the front page via email and I'll send

[Tony]

you the course right away.

[Sarah]

Once again, that's mywifequitterjob.com free.

[Tony]

Now back to the show. I mean I, I guess if you're an E commerce store owner listening to this, you need to be optimizing both your website and your Amazon listings for AI now.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Especially on your website. And what does that mean? Basically it means tapping into the emotions of your customer.

[Liz]

Right.

[Tony]

Like back in the day it was all about keywords and whatnot so you could rank in Google. So but, but that's changing now. You have to figure out what the true intent, what the customer is thinking when they're shopping and just make sure that is all in your product description on your website and read in by the AIs in order to show up.

[Liz]

Yeah, in my mind this circles back to a. Your product solves a problem, so your copy needs to be the problem solving copy. Right. Like they don't actually want an apple peeler. Right. They want a fresh apple pie at Thanksgiving that their grandmother used to make. You know that's what you're selling. Right. You're not just selling the apple peeler. And that's what this feels like. It's kind of coming all the way back around to is it feels like how we used to do things in, I don't know, 2009, 2008. Long time ago.

[Tony]

Here, here's the perfect example because I was trying to do this little case study on T shirts and I noticed there was this Amazon listing That said this shirt fits no matter how tall you are, whether you're like six, five or whatnot. And I thought that was odd when I saw that. And this, they said something about being really stretchy and comfortable for tall people. And that's when I realized that their point of differentiation probably is people who are just tall and lanky. Right?

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

But they put down the description.

[Liz]

What I say. That's when I realized I couldn't buy it.

[Tony]

No, my search for T shirts is I want to look more in shape than I really am and hide the Buddha belly.

[Liz]

That's the. So that's the T shirt brand. Oh my gosh. They're huge on Amazon. I can't. I'm completely blank. I buy them all the time.

[Tony]

You're talking about True Classic.

[Liz]

Yes, the True. I mean, that's their whole. That's what they've built their branding on.

[Tony]

I own several of them and they're 30 bucks a piece.

[Liz]

And they are amazing. T shirt. I mean, like, shout out to them for actually creating an awesome product that does what it says and they last. They. I mean, I have some for Brian that are probably like 2 years old and they still look brand new. So shout out to True Classics. But they do the same thing in their marketing, right? And they do the whole show the person wearing like a regular T shirt next to the person in the True Classic and they're capitalizing on, you know, the. The non sloppy look. Right? Like that's what, that's what they're going after.

[Tony]

And there was another line in this listing also that said something along the lines of, you don't get depressed looking at the mirror. It wasn't that exact line, but it was something phrased like that. Right? Like it makes me feel better whenever I look in the mirror in the morning. And it was a slightly rephrased line. And then I realized that these guys were just pulling stuff from their reviews and putting them in like their description.

[Liz]

So that's so interesting because I think I told you that I'm working with this ads company now who basically uses reviews to help write all the copy. Yeah, right. And they have an AI tool that I think it's their proprietary thing, but I'm sure, I'm sure you could code this up in an afternoon.

[Tony]

Actually, no, because scraping Amazon reviews is like Amazon's actively preventing that from happening.

[Liz]

Yes, sorry. This person is D2C, so they don't have an Amazon store. So it's scraping reviews on their website and basically using all of that copy in Everything that we do now. So it's really interesting to see how it's even the shift. I mean, we've always, you know, I think back when I met you, right, like, the whole thing was like, before you research, when you're researching your product, read Amazon reviews. But so it's always been something that I've been ingrained to do is like, look through reviews and use that to make decisions, decisions. And so it's always been in copy, but not to the level where now we're scraping every single review on the website and doing the same thing. Like when you look in the mirror, what? You know, same kind of thing. This, you know, changed our mornings. Whatever the product might be, it's basically all consumer generated.

[Tony]

You know, we're not, we're not at this point yet, obviously in, in shopping, like, it's still mostly humans doing the shopping. But I'm just thinking like, maybe two years out where maybe you want like an agent or whatever to take care of your shopping list. Like, maybe not make the final purchase, but just put together the shopping list. And I realized that back in the day, like when we shop, we just look at the image and we go, okay, we want that. It's kind of like an impulse buy. And we as humans just kind of fill in the blanks. We just kind of buy whatever we want. But when an AI is putting together the shopping list, like, they don't shop like humans. They need like all the information.

[Liz]

Yes.

[Tony]

In order to make that decision.

[Liz]

Yeah. And.

[Tony]

And so right now, and I was just looking around actually at some of the sites of my colleagues, some of the sites of my students, and it's really just like they do really good job on the images.

[Liz]

Yeah, right.

[Tony]

And they have a whole bunch of extra images. But in terms of the copy, well, we can use the T shirt example. It might say, you know, 60, 40, cotton, cotton blend or whatever. Cotton polyester blend. And they might have like the measurements and whatnot. But that's it for the description.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Right. And going forward, assuming, you know, we have AI put together shopping lists and whatnot, they're going to be invisible unless they change that.

[Liz]

Okay, so this gets me to another thought about all of this. You were talking about how agents doing your shopping, which I think makes a ton of sense for commodities, groceries, household items, things like that. But how does that work for items that people buy? Because they make them feel good.

[Tony]

So I was thinking it's not just commodities. Right. Like, for example, I went to Claude the other day and, and I said, hey, do the research. I need a new router. Find me the best router.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

That I can buy. That's the best bang for the buck. And it went out and just did a whole bunch of research and it came back with one.

[Liz]

Yeah. But it wasn't on Amazon.

[Tony]

Yeah, it wasn't on Amazon, but I was just looking for, like.

[Liz]

Yeah, right. Yeah.

[Tony]

So I guess that's not like, a commodity. Well, maybe it is a commodity.

[Liz]

Maybe it is. I don't know. But, like, I feel like that there's going to be this huge line Right. Between things like a router, things like a ceiling fan, you know, obviously, things like groceries, you know, staple goods. And then there's going to be this whole other bucket of things. Right. That I don't necessarily think that that can be bought for you. Right.

[Tony]

Okay. Let's just take clothing.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Right. So right now, my wife is using this service, and I forget what the service is called, but you take a picture of yourself and you describe, like, your style and whatnot.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

And then AI goes out and puts together these outfits.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

And I think the value prop of this specific one is it'll pick you 10 pieces that you can mix and match, and it makes it look like you have this whole.

[Liz]

Yeah, right.

[Sarah]

So she's doing that right now.

[Tony]

And technically that's not an. That's not a commodity.

[Liz]

Right.

[Tony]

And. And it's going out and grabbing a whole bunch of different outfits. She ultimately gets to choose, but it's AI that finds the stuff. And if I can't find a particular article, it's not going to be part of the collection.

[Liz]

Correct. Yeah. So I think. I think that we're going to see a increase in those sorts of things. Right. That's going to get a lot bigger. It's kind of like stitch fix on steroids.

[Tony]

Right?

[Liz]

Right. Because with Stitch Fitch, which sticks. Stick stitch. I can't say it. Stitch fix. Uh, I mean, I think I tried it, like, 10 years ago. I got some stuff, but I felt like, because, you know, you had, like, a consultant or a fashion person, like, they just didn't always, like, get it. You know, it depended on, like, some people I knew, like, had great results and other people I know didn't. And I think that was really dependent on the quality of the person. Right. Well, AI removes that. Right. The quality is based on you and the input you're giving to AI. Right. So the problem is you. If you're not getting what you want, if you're doing everything correctly, actually what

[Tony]

it asks you for also is like just pictures of what you wear, right? So you just submit a bunch of pictures and it kind of gets an idea of what your style is. Yeah, I forgot your original point. You were saying like people, I think

[Liz]

this is, we're going to see a huge increase in services like this, right? We're going to see companies that are AI based that are doing, you know, the same thing with like, you know, remember when all the bloggers, you know, built all these like recipe apps and like, oh, you know, recipe, you put your recipe in and it gets your ingredients in your shopping list and like, you know, now that's all just going to, you don't need to use an app. You can just literally open up, chat GPT, take a picture of your pantry, right? So all those things are going to be, that's going to be just. I don't think that's going to, that's going to get better and better. And I think that it's actually a really good use case. What I think won't change is like, and it's changing in like think about the sites that allow you to try on like glasses, right? On like you take a picture of your face and it puts all the glasses on you, you know, so like that stuff's just gonna get better and better. Cause I remember when that first came out and you like put a pair of glasses on, you're like, this doesn't look good, like. Cause it's just bad quality, it just wasn't good quality, right? But what I don't think is gonna change is like the luxury side, right? So and I'm thinking if you sell or are thinking about getting into like the higher end products, right? Because I don't know if we always joke we have totally different TikTok rhythms, algorithms. But I follow the baddie in a Benz guy who sells Mercedes, he's in Georgia and he, his TikToks are just phenomenal, right? He's a car salesman but he has like perfected this like, you know, people are like going to Georgia to buy a Mercedes from this guy when they could buy a Mercedes down the road in their town, right? Because he's so fantastic. But there's something about, I think about Hermes, right, Like the handbags. Like there's something about getting the appointment, going to the store, getting the glass of Prosecco, right? And so I think some items, especially those higher end AI is not going to. People want someone to like cater to them and pamper them and do that kind of stuff and they want that experience kind of like walking into the Apple Store. Right. Where there's a guy in a blue shirt that runs up to you with an iPad and he's like, let me help you with every single problem you've ever had in your life. You don't know this because you're an Android user, but like when you walk into an Apple Store, you feel like they could fix your car if you needed to. Right. Because they're just, you know, all over you for that kind of stuff. So I think there's going to be this like big line where there's a lot of things where AI is going to be able to do like almost all the heavy lifting and then there's going to be this other like luxury side of things where people want the engagement they want the interaction they want. That's why like luxury travel will, if you're a luxury travel agent, you're fine. Because people want to be able to get on the phone with you when they're stuck in the airport. This week. Right. We had like a million flight cancellations. Like they want to be able to call Betty and be like, Betty, get me on a plane to whatever. And Betty's like, I got you and gets the private jet or whatever. Right. So it'll be interesting to see how this all like divides because I think it's going to be very. Two very different shopping experiences for people.

[Tony]

Yeah. I mean, in person shopping isn't going away, but I'm just seeing more and more AI covering. I mean, what percentage is the luxury goods market? I don't know what that is, but it's low.

[Liz]

But if I was going to get into a business, it would be the luxury goods market at this point. Point. Right.

[Tony]

Actually, I saw a stat the other day where retail in store sales have gone up year to year.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Maybe it's because people are just tired and, and they want, they crave like real life.

[Liz]

I don't know, they want to fight for a card at Ross. What are you talking about?

[Tony]

Well, the other part of that is I also saw this other statistic and I don't want to butcher it because I can't remember if it was the top 1% of the top 10%. But what I remember I think was the top 1% are responsible for 50% of like the retail sales or something crazy like that.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

And so I guess you're fighting for all like the rich people.

[Liz]

Yeah, well, I saw it. I saw a tick tock the other day from this guy and it was just like some, I Don't know who he was, but it was basically like, don't sell the poor people. Like, basically they're the worst customers, you know, and I'm sure I'm gonna offend everybody. And I'm quoting him, Basically, they're the worst customers. They're always dissatisfied. They want a nickel and dime you. And he was like, create a brand where you sell to wealthy people and use the money that you make to invest in lower income communities. Right. So, you know, not. And it was, so it wasn't a negative on people of lower income. It was just like. And I get that, like back when we were like struggling, I was, I wasn't necessarily a picky shopper, but man, I was like, I will examine this jar of beans all day long to figure out if I should pay $0.68 or $0.62, you know, you know, for black beans in a can. Because it was, it was an impactful purchase to me.

[Tony]

Right.

[Liz]

So I do think there is something to be said about that. And you know, when you are, if you're in the beginning stages of building a business, I also think this matters a lot with brand building.

[Tony]

Right, I agree.

[Liz]

Because like, I don't need to research a cooler. I'm buying a Yeti. Right. Because I'm a yeti loyalist. If I'm going to buy a cup, I'm buying a Stanley. Right. Or like my sister got me hooked on the Odwal like water straw bottles. Right. So it's like that the brand loyalty is crazy. And I think that's one way to help your business in spite of everything that goes on. Right. Like if you have, if you have a lot of brand loyalty, it doesn't matter how anything works. People are going to like buy, buy from you. They're just going to research like, do I need the 64 ounce cooler or the, you know, whatever that's probably too small, but you know, that's where, that's where people are going to be doing the research. What to buy from you, not if they should buy from you.

[Tony]

Okay, so this is the part that's been keeping me up at night. Like if, if AI is doing all those searches.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Or the bulk of them, let's just say.

[Liz]

Right? Yeah.

[Tony]

Because why, why bother going through all that? I mean, some people like the research and whatnot, but like, for me, I just want, I just want to know what to buy. Right?

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Well, if AI is making those decisions, then like the AI doesn't care about your story.

[Liz]

No.

[Tony]

They don't care about any of the stuff. And if it's making the decision, like all the work that you do for branding on your site and whatnot, like, does that even matter as much anymore if AI is making the decisions? You know what I'm saying?

[Liz]

Yeah. I mean, so how. But how is AI making the decision

[Tony]

off of the copy?

[Liz]

Right. No, but, like, so if you wanted to buy something and I wanted to buy the same thing. Right. You and I both wanted to buy a router. This is actually.

[Tony]

You're just trying to speak my language. I love it. Yes.

[Liz]

This is actually a fan. I just have come up with the best example probably ever that I've ever come up with on the podcast. So you want to buy a router. I want to buy a router. We both go into whatever tool we're using to buy this router. What you want in a router and what I want in a router is very different. I want a router that literally involves one. One action of plugging in. It immediately is set up. There is nothing that I have to do. There is. I don't have to get on the phone with anybody. And you want a router that probably has very different features than what I want. Right. Like you're. You probably care about other things that I don't even know exist. So are we assuming, and I guess we are, that AI knows that about me and knows that about you, and so when they go out to do the search and find the information, they are armed with that. Right. Because the best router for you is not the best router for me.

[Tony]

Right. But again, that's all going to be determined from the copy on the page. Not some emotional router's probably not a good example for emotional purchases anyways.

[Liz]

It is, because I don't want to cry. Installing a router that's.

[Tony]

I mean, presumably, like, you'll give the AI the parameters, like, this is what I want and it'll go out and find it. Right?

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

The point is, once it finds it, like, you're not attached to that brand because.

[Liz]

Right.

[Tony]

Who cares? Right? The AI is making a decision. Like all the little storytelling and all that stuff on the site doesn't. Doesn't matter.

[Liz]

But does it? Is it the. Because here's what I'm thinking. I feel like the brand storytelling doesn't matter as much. Right. Like why you started the company. You know, who cares? But does the storytelling in the copy. Right. Of, you know, I was tired of buying routers that required a chemical or electrical engineering degree to install.

[Tony]

Correct. Right, Right. That would work.

[Liz]

That' where the story still matters. Right. Because whereas, you know, your story would be, like, tired of your neighbor stealing your Internet or, you know, whatever. I don't know. I. I feel like the story matters. It just matters differently now.

[Tony]

No, I. I agree. I mean, basically everything needs to be AI readable and you need to spell out everything, basically.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Right. In order for things to. For AI to make it a consideration.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Tony]

But there's also something we said, like once you actually finally get that router choice and you buy it.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Like, there's like. I get attached to stuff when I do the research myself. Like when I read about the brand and I fall in love with the founder sometimes, you know.

[Liz]

Yeah. There's a. There's actually a. A psychological word for that that's completely escaping my mind. But yeah. Okay, so you fall in love with stuff and the company, and I'll buy

[Tony]

it based on that. And I feel like that might be going away. And I know a lot of people shop from Bumblebee Linens because, like, Jen is very personable.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Like, she handles customer service on occasion. And when she does, you know, it's. People buy because they like her and they know she's going to follow through and make sure things are going to get delivered. Right.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

A doesn't care about any of that stuff. Stuff. Right. I'm just like. I'm just thinking, like, maybe in the future there's going to be a break between. It's going to be harder to. To build a brand is, I guess, is my point.

[Liz]

Yes, I think so. But also, this was when you first talked, when we first talked before we started recording that we were going to talk about this. My first thought was, but if everybody is using AI to write their listings, like, that's immediately what I. Because, I mean, that's what I mean. I don't know. I'm in. Like, my Facebook feed is just all E commerce ads right now of, like, programs and conferences and all this stuff. So to me, it's like, well, can. Can't AI just figure this all out on its own? Like, if AI is writing the listing and AI is finding the buyers or finding the products, like, I mean, seriously, at what? It feels like this weird circle. Right. This circular logic that. Yeah. So, so does that.

[Tony]

I mean, that's the state of content today, right?

[Liz]

Right. So you should have AI writing your listings or you shouldn't, right?

[Tony]

Well, no, no, no. I mean, we can, we can talk about what to do now. By the way, there's A. There's a couple people covering this topic at Seller Summit. Like the type of content you should write and then how ranking and AI search works.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

So if you guys are interested in that, you know, pick up your ticket to Seller Summit, which is in April. But what, but I would, what I would do right now is we kind of talked about these examples on the POD already. Go through all of your reviews.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

And figure out all of the like emotional language that people were using. Like that T shirt example. Right?

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Like if you're tall and lanky, you know, put that in the description. Or that example about feeling better about after looking in the mirror.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Sarah]

I mean that's probably something I pulled

[Tony]

from True Classic Teas. I don't remember anymore.

[Liz]

Yeah, I'm sure it is. I'm sure it is. Yeah.

[Tony]

Because that's the type of question. It's like when I do a search now on AI, I don't just type in wedding handkerchiefs. I say something like, I want a lasting keepsake for my wedding that my daughter will cherish and maybe pass down to her. Her daughter or son or whatever.

[Liz]

Right, right, right.

[Tony]

And that type of verbiage in a traditional old school E commerce site where you just list this handkerchief is 11 inches square or whatever.

[Liz]

This is the fact that this is the color. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. I hadn't thought this specifically about this, but we're going through like a big site redesign and we're changing our listings and they're actually going to be a lot more like this. So I guess I was knowing it without knowing it.

[Tony]

Yeah. Like with the curriculums or whatever. Like I'm sure there's a lot of mental stuff. Like it's a very emotional purchase actually. I think.

[Liz]

Yeah. For sure. And right now we really only are like this is 32 lessons, this is blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, eh, we need more.

[Tony]

Right.

[Liz]

You know this isn't going to get people to especially I feel like anything that comes to like with kids. Right. Like raising your kids or impacting your kids. People get very emotional with the. Not necessarily like sad or happy, but like they're very emotionally invested in what a product can do for their kids.

[Tony]

Yeah. So if we were just kind of circle back to the original Amazon story.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Amazon is forcing us to do this twice now on our own website and Amazon.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

Because I guess in theory Amazon's not picking up any of Amazon's stuff. I mean they've already blocked the AI LLMs already. They did that long ago.

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

This court case that they wanted perplexity. I'm sure it's just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure they're going to force all the other alums to remove all of Amazon's data. And so we'll have two silos, I guess, right?

[Liz]

Yeah.

[Tony]

One's your website and one's Amazon. And Amazon's betting that people will use Rufus. It remains to be seen what's going to happen there.

[Sarah]

Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you're not optimizing for AI, you're going to be in trouble very soon. For more information and resources, go over to mywifequitterjob.com episode634 and once again, tickets to Seller Summit 2026 are now on

[Tony]

sale [e-mail] if you want to hang

[Sarah]

out in person in a small, intimate setting, develop real relationships with like minded entrepreneurs and learn a ton, then come to my event, go to sellersummit.com.